mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

turd ferguson

Those of us living near Lansing know the joys of being among Spartans, and with this being MSU week, I feel a duty to share those joys with anyone who might be unfamiliar. These people bring sunshine to our lives, and we would be remiss if we didn’t communicate our appreciation before this silly little game.

Michigan State athletics programs have become pioneers in 21st-century teambuilding. Concerned about the rapid decline of face-to-face contact, MSU athletes have repeatedly come together, in large groups, to contact the faces of their fellow athletes and classmates.

Sportsmanship is always the Spartan’s highest priority. When an opposing player gets hurt, MSU students come together to let that player know that he is as beloved and cherished as a sweet family pet. If a fan, who’s totally a CMU grad or something, gets unruly, the community reins him in immediately, nobly protecting our great-great-great-grandmothers along the way. The head basketball coach once even sat out a game in honor of NCAA rules.

This might be one of those things that's cool only to me, but the chart below depicts the current rankings of prospects in the class of 2013. I used 247's composite rankings, which combine those from 247, Rivals, Scout, and ESPN. Each colored sliver represents a committed recruit. The total number of commitments for each program is provided next to the school's name.

I've binned these by 50s, so there's some rounding going on. Basically, if you look under the "1" on top, you'll see a sliver for every player ranked 1-50 in the national composite rankings. OSU has four of those, Penn State has two, and we have one (Morris). The last group ("1001+") represents recruits ranked 1000 or lower or, in almost all cases, unranked recruits.

I had to be creative with the rankings for a few recruits (e.g., JC guys), but I just figured out where their ratings would place them on the regular high school recruit scale.

A few of my observations:

Big two, little ten. For real. Those two programs are drawing from an entirely part of the distribution from the rest of the Big Ten programs.

These group together pretty nicely. It looks like there are basically three tiers. The top tier is Michigan and OSU. The second tier is Nebraska, Wisconsin, Penn State (for now at least), MSU, and Iowa. Then there's everyone else.

Someone should make sure that Minnesota's planning to continue its football program. One key ingredient for a football program: football players. Minnesota, you might want to get a few of those.

Having done something similar last year, I just combined the Scout, Rivals, and 247 football recruit rankings into one. The purpose is to help sort through the confusion that comes from seeing three different rankings for each kid. I provide a little analysis below the rankings, but I’ll leave the rest to you.

What to know about how I did this:

I started with the Scout 300, Rivals 250, and 247’s top 247 and removed all of the prospects who were ranked by only one of them. Therefore, every prospect below appeared on at least two of those three lists. The reasons for this are that: (1) it keeps the rankings to a manageable size and (2) if only one site really likes a prospect, it might just be an outlier.

If a kid was ranked by two services but not the third, I imputed a ranking for the third service. To do this, I added 100 to the lowest ranking provided by that service. In other words, a kid who wasn’t ranked in Scout’s top 300 received a Scout ranking of 400; a kid who wasn’t ranked in Rivals’ top 250 received a Rivals ranking of 350; and a kid who wasn’t ranked in 247’s top 247 received a 247 rank of 347.

I took one more step before finding the average ranking for each prospect. I incorporated the median ranking across those three services. Therefore, a prospect’s mean ranking, which is the basis of these rankings, comes from an average of his real/imputed Scout ranking, Rivals ranking, 247 ranking, and the median of the three. I added the median to mitigate the effect that one outlier ranking would have on a prospect’s mean.

Okay, enough with that.

Edit: I just added position rankings. Note that I used the positions listed by Scout.

I've been thinking about rivalries lately, as I think they're among the most endearing features of college sports. It struck me that there are some similarities across rivalries - often rooted in the types of schools involved - that enable a rough classification into certain types of rivalries (and the feelings involved).

These aren't perfect or complete, of course, and I'm sure that I've mislabeled a couple of the rivalries here, but just for fun...

Rivalry Type #1: The one-game season

For some schools, a rivalry game is of such importance relative to the rest of the schedule that these season-defining games will be the one event that energizes each school’s fan base. However, the animosity between schools is relatively mild, probably because people attend these schools for reasons other than sports. The rivalry game affords students and alumni a fun annual foray into passionate intercollegiate athletics, but the rivalry is revered more than the rival is detested.

If one rivalry type is inherently unhealthy for all involved, it’s that between two schools from the same state where one school seems almost objectively preferable to prospective students. This is where the dominant school is both academically superior and more relevant on the national sports scene. The dominant school’s attitude toward its rival, epitomized by Mike Hart’s “little brother” comments, is dismissive irritation, as the dominant school rolls its eyes at its rival’s obsession with the dominant school and delusion about the subordinate school’s national relevance. The subordinate school’s attitude toward its rival, epitomized by Rufus the Bobcat’s premeditated attack on Brutus, is visceral hatred. The structural danger in these rivalries is that the dominant school essentially holds a trump card – superior academics / higher admissions standards – so the subordinate school finds itself in an unwinnable battle for respect from its condescending in-state rival.

Similar to Rivalry Type #2 in that these rivalries often pit family members, friends, and neighbors against one another, these rivalries lack the clear hierarchy of the “big brother” – “little brother” rivalries. The schools have similar attitudes toward one another, and the driving motivation is bragging rights, since fans and alumni of one school find themselves in constant contact with fans and alumni of the rival school. Like Rivalry Type #2, these games tend to be much more relevant locally than nationally, but they’re true, fair battles that dominate headlines in that state as the rivalry game approaches.

With a different dynamic from in-state rivalries, public schools from neighboring states can produce rivalries that are more unifying than divisive. Here, daily contact with rival fans is less inevitable, and local newspapers, stores, television stations, and public figures openly cheer for one side over the other. The competition is about athletics, not academics, since in-state tuition differences and preferences for in-state schools mean that students/alumni of each school commonly will not consider the other. School pride and state pride often become intertwined, and the best of Rivalry Type #4 comes from schools with comparably (and highly) powerful football programs.

One notable class of rivalries involves geographically proximate stellar schools, where one is public and the other private. Many of our oldest universities are among our best universities, so these schools typically have long histories that include extended periods during which the competing schools had exceptional teams. Today, these rivalries are defined by a mutual respect for the other institution and distaste for the type of person who would attend it. Even when one school is arguably better academically than the other, the schools are different enough culturally – but each strong enough academically – that reasonable people could choose to attend each school. The distaste for the type of person in one’s rival school is most commonly voiced by the public school, which finds its private school rival stuffy, entitled, uppity, and sheltered.

I’m sorry to post again, but I think the improvements are significant enough – thanks to some intelligent feedback – to warrant a new posting.

Below is my attempt to aggregate the Rivals, Scout, 247, and ESPN rankings into a universal list. The goal is to draw from all of the data available to create a single list that eliminates the need to juggle rankings, ratings, and stars from four different sites when comparing prospects.

First, though, I’ll describe the logic and process.

The Process

There are countless ways to do this, and none of them is perfect. Importantly, even though I’m a Michigan fan, I never considered how this would look for Michigan before deciding how to do it. I’m trying to make this as objective and sensible as possible given time and data constraints.

The first decision one has to make is whom to include. In my first draft, I included only those who appeared in the top X lists for all four sites. Others thought that requirement was too rigid, so I’ve relaxed it here. The players appearing on this list appear in at least three of the four following lists: Rivals’ top 250, Scout’s top 300, 247’s top 247, and ESPN’s top 300. This eliminates the “veto power” nature of the first rankings (and the related outlier worries), since two sites would have to leave out a prospect for him to be excluded.

The next decision is how to rank those who make it. The most straightforward way to do this is to take the average ranking for each prospect across the four sites. In an ideal world, each site would rank every prospect so there would be no missing data. That isn’t reality. Therefore, I imputed rankings where they were missing. Here’s how I did in for each site (this is boring if you aren't interested):

ESPN – ESPN actually makes this the easiest, because they just rank thousands of prospects. Every ESPN ranking here reflects ESPN’s actual ranking.

Rivals – Rivals ranks its top 250 prospects and then gives elite prospects a star rating and a “Rivals rating” of 4.9 to 6.1. Using those ratings – and especially the Rivals rating – I found the range within which a recruit must fall (rankings-wise) and gave him the middle value. For example, Rivals has 222 guys rated a 5.8. Of them, 163 appear in the Rivals 250 (and 59 do not). That means that a prospect who receives a rating of 5.8 from Rivals but does not appear in the Rivals 250 must rank somewhere between 251 and 309. For this prospect, I would impute a ranking of 280.

247 – Exactly the same logic as with Rivals except that I had to trust them when they said, for example, that about 300 prospects are rated 90 or higher. (They don’t let you sort by prospect rating.)

Scout – This one might seem unusual, but I think it’s actually pretty accurate. Scout doesn’t have anything like a Rivals rating, but it ranks prospects at their positions. For those outside of the top 300, I took their position ranking and imputed based on where ESPN had that ranked overall. For example, Scout has Amos Leggett as its #22 cornerback. ESPN has its #22 CB ranked #404 overall, so this is Leggett’s imputed Scout ranking. (There was an exception to this with two TEs that I can explain if anyone's interested.)

I hope that makes sense, and I’m happy to answer questions in the comments. Please feel free to share feedback or point out errors.

Also, if one of these sites significantly changes its rankings in the next few days I’m going to kill someone.

The Product

rank

name

pos

mean

Rivals

Scout

247

ESPN

college

1

Dorial Green-Beckham

WR

2

1

2

2

3

2

Eddie Goldman

DT

6

4

15

3

2

3

Mario Edwards

DE

6.25

2

8

14

1

Florida State

4

Stefon Diggs

S

9.25

8

12

8

9

5

D.J. Humphries

OT

10.25

3

18

13

7

6

Arik Armstead

OT

10.5

23

1

1

17

USC

7

Andrus Peat

OT

11

15

3

4

22

7

John Theus

OT

11

7

4

6

27

9

Johnathan Gray

RB

11.5

14

9

15

8

Texas

10

Shaq Thompson

S

11.75

10

11

5

21

11

Noah Spence

DE

13.75

13

6

32

4

12

Gunner Kiel

QB

14.25

19

16

10

12

13

Eddie Williams

S

18

20

36

11

5

Alabama

14

Keith Marshall

RB

18.25

55

5

7

6

15

Malcom Brown

DT

22.75

26

26

26

13

Texas

16

Kyle Murphy

OT

23.5

28

27

9

30

17

Rushel Shell

RB

26.25

33

10

39

23

18

Jessamen Dunker

OT

27.5

49

22

25

14

Florida

19

Jameis Winston

QB

28.25

52

30

16

15

20

Ellis McCarthy

DT

29

6

29

28

53

21

Darius Hamilton

DE

29.25

5

25

20

67

22

Nelson Agholor

S

31.25

9

53

22

41

23

Joshua Garnett

OG

32.25

22

24

40

43

24

Cayleb Jones

WR

39.25

21

23

93

20

Texas

24

Tracy Howard

CB

39.25

25

55

58

19

26

Noor Davis

OLB

39.75

30

77

34

18

Stanford

27

Geno Smith

CB

40.25

47

54

29

31

28

Dante Fowler

DE

41.75

11

39

43

74

Florida State

29

Yuri Wright

CB

42

41

75

12

40

30

Shaq Roland

WR

43.5

63

17

48

46

31

Chris Black

WR

44

57

71

19

29

32

Landon Collins

S

45

17

59

53

51

33

Aziz Shittu

DT

47.5

12

41

49

88

33

Jordan Jenkins

DE

47.5

56

44

27

63

35

Kennedy Estelle

OT

47.75

35

43

65

48

Texas

36

Jonathan Taylor

DT

48

36

66

46

44

Georgia

37

Ifeadi Odenigbo

OLB

48.75

48

60

37

50

38

Kwon Alexander

OLB

49

77

34

69

16

39

Jarron Jones

DT

49.75

67

14

21

97

Penn State

40

Josh Harvey-Clemons

OLB

50.5

39

78

61

24

40

Trey Williams

RB

50.5

24

20

24

134

Texas A&M

42

Thomas Johnson

WR

56.5

50

87

54

35

Texas

43

Jabari Ruffin

OLB

57.25

46

104

45

34

USC

44

Ronald Darby

CB

57.5

64

32

64

70

Notre Dame

45

Jordan Simmons

OG

57.75

45

31

70

85

45

Kyle Kalis

OT

57.75

18

21

52

140

47

Dominique Wheeler

WR

59.25

66

48

78

45

48

Devin Fuller

QB

60.75

37

150

17

39

49

Chris Casher

DE

61.5

83

57

96

10

Florida State

50

Durron Neal

WR

65

32

61

105

62

Oklahoma

51

Tommy Schutt

DT

65.5

29

47

51

135

52

Eli Harold

OLB

71.25

59

58

38

130

53

Channing Ward

DE

73

120

37

41

94

54

Adolphus Washington

DE

74.75

86

19

98

96

54

Barry Sanders

RB

74.75

121

50

50

78

56

Ricky Parks

TE

77.75

92

80

66

73

Auburn

57

Zach Banner

OT

79.75

31

46

117

125

58

Connor Brewer

QB

80.5

123

117

56

26

Texas

59

Avery Johnson

WR

80.75

43

83

155

42

LSU

60

Tee Shepard

CB

83.5

51

49

145

89

Notre Dame

61

Carlos Watkins

DT

84.5

76

91

30

141

62

Jonathan Bullard

DE

84.75

16

106

136

81

63

Alex Ross

RB

86.5

183

89

36

38

Oklahoma

64

Quay Evans

DT

87.5

169

7

141

33

65

Joel Caleb

WR

89.5

44

210

55

49

66

Davonte Neal

WR

91

136

114

86

28

67

Brock Stadnik

OT

91.25

165

69

72

59

South Carolina

68

Torshiro Davis

OLB

93.75

97

136

71

71

LSU

69

Travis Blanks

S

94.25

27

124

215

11

Clemson

70

Erik Magnuson

OT

96

34

96

85

169

Michigan

71

Zach Kline

QB

96.25

40

128

157

60

California

72

Mario Pender

RB

98

53

88

204

47

Florida State

73

T.J. Yeldon

RB

98.5

58

105

110

121

Auburn

74

Brian Poole

CB

99

75

42

143

136

Florida

75

Reggie Ragland

MLB

102.75

217

35

47

112

Alabama

76

Jordan Diamond

OT

103

209

40

60

103

77

LaDarrell McNeil

S

105.25

107

51

83

180

78

Peter Jinkens

OLB

106

101

101

166

56

Texas

79

Byron Marshall

RB

108.25

90

118

135

90

80

Se'von Pittman

DE

109.25

61

79

196

101

Michigan State

81

Germone Hopper

WR

109.75

102

172

101

64

Clemson

82

Javonte Magee

DT

110

127

81

44

188

83

Terry Richardson

CB

110.75

195

149

31

68

Michigan

84

Tyriq McCord

DE

111

60

181

103

100

85

Brian Nance

OLB

113.75

73

125

67

190

86

Avery Young

OT

114.25

38

13

287*

119

87

Dan Voltz

OG

115

154

99

23

184

Wisconsin

87

Kendall Sanders

CB

115

54

94

142

170

Oklahoma State

89

Devonte Fields

DE

115.75

147

145

102

69

TCU

89

Kent Taylor

TE

115.75

68

63

185

147

91

Michael Starts

OG

116.5

148

70

119

129

Texas Tech

92

Anthony Alford

QB

117.25

105

230

35

99

93

Justin Shanks

DT

118.75

111

84

162

118

94

Angelo Jean-Louis

WR

119

113

223

88

52

Miami (FL)

95

Evan Boehm

C

122

130

100

203

55

Missouri

96

Royce Jenkins-Stone

MLB

123.25

87

115

174

117

Michigan

97

James Ross

MLB

123.5

143

73

84

194

Michigan

98

Jordan Payton

WR

124.25

96

56

199

146

USC

99

Derrick Woods

WR

124.5

81

180

109

128

100

Elijah Shumate

S

124.75

112

93

76

218

101

Brian Kimbrow

RB

128.75

80

153

128

154

102

Sterling Shepard

WR

129.25

220

108

131

58

Oklahoma

103

Matt Davis

QB

131.25

144

38

187

156

Texas A&M

104

Brionte Dunn

RB

131.75

124

28

154

221

Ohio State-ish

105

Colin Thompson

TE

133.75

197

95

160

83

Florida

105

Zeke Pike

QB

133.75

72

33

18

412*

Auburn

107

P.J. Williams

S

134.5

173

127

124

114

Florida State

108

Dwayne Stanford

WR

134.75

93

107

228

111

109

Isaac Seumalo

OG

135.5

175

168

134

65

109

Jaquay Williams

WR

135.5

94

116

173

159

Auburn

111

Bralon Addison

WR

137

155

119

137

137

Texas A&M

112

Ronnie Stanley

OT

140

149

76

62

273

113

Sheldon Day

DT

142.25

280*

65

80

144

114

Deon Bush

S

142.5

65

264

175

66

114

Matt Jones

RB

142.5

157

82

178

153

Florida

116

Kevon Seymour

CB

143.75

85

193

132

165

117

Jelani Hamilton

DE

145

79

62

92

347*

Miami (FL)

118

Alex Carter

S

145.5

62

287

118

115

Stanford

119

Dillon Lee

MLB

148

232

207

81

72

Alabama

120

Lorenzo Phillips

OLB

149.5

146

199

111

142

121

Vadal Alexander

OG

151.25

280*

126

108

91

122

Jalen Cope-Fitzpatrick

TE

152

180

123

183

122

123

Wayne Morgan

S

155.75

139

270

33

181

124

Paul Thurston

OT

159.5

137

112

231

158

Nebraska

124

Timothy Cole

OLB

159.5

99

151

129

259

Texas

126

Scott Starr

MLB

160.75

110

186

106

241

USC

127

Korren Kirven

DT

161.5

280*

194

63

109

128

Marcus Maye

S

162.75

128

195

120

208

129

Cyrus Jones

RB

165.25

224

250

150

37

130

Denzel Devall

DE

165.75

125

232

91

215

131

Eugene Lewis

WR

166.25

162

67

219

217

132

Leonard Floyd

DE

166.75

159

121

94

293

Georgia

133

Justin Thomas

WR

168.75

205

217

82

171

Alabama

134

Reginald Davis

WR

169.25

214

120

261*

82

Texas Tech

135

Amos Leggett

CB

169.5

104

404*

75

95

Miami (FL)

136

Troy Hinds

DE

170.75

215

72

114

282

137

Greg Garmon

RB

172.25

184

68

232

205

138

Max Tuerk

OT

172.5

103

243

287*

57

USC

139

Drae Bowles

WR

173.25

109

300

182

102

139

Leonard Williams

DE

173.25

71

228

287*

107

139

Vince Biegel

OLB

173.25

95

218

214

166

Wisconsin

142

Faith Ekakitie

DT

173.5

100

216

104

274

142

J.J. Denman

OT

173.5

242

111

181

160

Penn State

144

John Michael McGee

C

173.75

82

169

210

234

145

Camrhon Hughes

OT

174.75

89

74

261*

275

Texas

146

Brandon Beaver

CB

175.25

114

166

77

344*

147

Quanzell Lambert

MLB

178

117

204

127

264

148

Kenyan Drake

RB

180.5

280*

139

73

230

Alabama

149

Chris Muller

OT

183.75

69

324*

100

242

Rutgers

150

Patrick Miller

OT

184

199

222

113

202

151

Keivarae Russell

RB

185

106

152

42

440*

151

Orlando Thomas

CB

185

119

269

133

219

Texas

153

Camren Williams

OLB

185.25

243

138

116

244

Penn State

154

Ty Darlington

C

186

118

241

287*

98

155

D.J. Foster

RB

186.5

74

200

287*

185

156

Aaron Burbridge

WR

189.25

134

90

229

304*

156

Ken Ekanem

DE

189.25

185

191

159

222

158

Ishmael Adams

CB

191.5

98

253

201

214

159

Curtis Riser

OG

192.5

244

220

123

183

Texas

159

Marvin Bracy

WR

192.5

245

177

238

110

161

Joshua Perry

OLB

194.75

131

231

235

182

Ohio State

162

Taylor McNamara

TE

196.5

84

302*

144

256

Arizona

163

Chris Wormley

DE

198.75

452*

113

57

173

164

Raphael Kirby

OLB

199

126

233

287*

150

Miami (FL)

165

Greg McMullen

DE

202

88

183

140

397*

Nebraska

166

Tyler Hayes

OLB

203.75

452*

122

115

126

Alabama

167

Cyler Miles

QB

204

160

272

138

246

Washington

168

Deaysean Rippy

OLB

205.5

247

103

146

326*

169

Dalvon Stuckey

DT

207.25

207

171

184

267

Florida State

169

Omari Phillips

OT

207.25

225

258

233

113

Florida

171

Jordan Watkins

DE

207.75

171

142

163

355*

172

Joe Bolden

OLB

211

167

238

287*

152

Michigan

173

Ronnie Feist

OLB

211.75

204

251

261*

131

LSU

174

Sean Price

TE

219.75

190

301*

164

224

175

Freddie Tagaloa

OT

220.25

206

219

188

268

176

Mike Davis

RB

220.75

122

234

198

329*

Florida

177

Kaiwan Lewis

MLB

221

280*

158

240

206

178

Jaleel Johnson

DT

223.25

140

203

261*

289

179

Nick James

DT

223.75

452*

110

107

226

180

Michael Barton

OLB

226

280*

182

205

237

California

181

Beniquez Brown

OLB

227

452*

134

195

127

182

Martin Aiken

DE

227.5

189

97

243

381*

183

Paul Boyette

DT

227.75

168

224

323*

196

Texas

184

Michael Moore

DE

229.25

176

286

125

330*

Virginia

185

Jeremi Powell

OLB

229.5

218

275

170

255

Florida

186

Warren Ball

RB

230

212

52

206

450*

Ohio State

187

Reggie Daniels

S

231.5

280*

154

208

284

188

Adam Bisnowaty

OT

234.75

177

302*

202

258

189

Shane Callahan

OT

235.25

191

173

323*

254

Auburn

190

Jonathan Williams

RB

238

170

209

246

327*

Missouri

191

Chad Voytik

QB

242.5

153

277

368*

172

191

Deontay McManus

WR

242.5

108

247

139

476*

191

Mike Madaras

OT

242.5

230

260

287*

193

Maryland

194

Evan Baylis

TE

242.75

280*

189

225

277

Oregon

195

Bart Houston

QB

246.25

452*

160

197

176

Wisconsin

196

Jordan Diggs

S

248.25

280*

268

158

287

197

Deion Bonner

S

252.5

452*

176

153

229

198

Lacy Westbrook

OG

255.75

213

137

186

487*

199

Trevor Knight

QB

264.75

228

274

261*

296

Texas A&M

200

Amara Darboh

WR

268.75

194

161

148

572*

201

Jody Fuller

WR

272.75

210

543*

152

186

202

Malcolm Lewis

WR

274

164

596*

193

143

203

Armani Reeves

CB

274.25

187

144

59

707*

204

Darreus Rogers

WR

280.75

172

135

74

742*

USC

205

Zac Brooks

WR

282.5

174

278

126

552*

206

Tom Strobel

DE

284

231

211

169

525*

Michigan

207

Quinteze Williams

DE

285.25

452*

279

190

220

Florida

208

Bryce Treggs

WR

288

133

102

230

687*

209

Gabriel Marks

CB

289.5

166

239

172

581*

210

Ondre Pipkins

DT

295

246

175

149

610*

211

Kyle Dodson

OT

302.25

152

187

192

678*

Wisconsin

212

Brandon Fanaika

OG

308.5

202

257

213

562*

213

Edward Pope

S

319.5

193

280

218

587*

TCU

214

Quinshad Davis

WR

321

250

292

234

508*

215

Leonte Carroo

WR

326.25

211

86

245

763*

216

Deontay Greenberry

WR

331.5

115

244

209

758*

Notre Dame

217

Michael Richardson

DE

371.25

756*

294

226

209

Texas A&M

218

Kwontie Moore

MLB

383.25

116

1054*

97

266

Virginia

219

Germain Ifedi

OG

384

756*

285

242

253

Missouri

*imputed

A final note about ESPN

Several commenters in my previous diary expressed that they’d like to see these rankings without ESPN. I don’t think there’s enough reason or evidence to dismiss ESPN entirely. However, for those who are interested, here’s how some recruits would rank among the above prospects if ESPN were excluded: Kalis (23), Washington (55), Magnuson (57), Ross (76), Dunn (79), Diamond (82), Richardson (104), Jenkins-Stone (106), Stanford (123), Burbridge (131), Pipkins (169), Strobel (181), Wormley (183), Bolden (201). Of course, the list of prospects included would change if ESPN were ignored altogether.

Note: I edited this since my original post to better utilize the ESPN data. Apologies if this makes some of the comments confusing.

Never having contributed anything of value to this site, I thought I’d take a shot at combining the Scout, Rivals, 247, and ESPN player rankings into one. The goal is to come up with a straightforward way to compare elite recruits’ status with the ranking services (i.e. without forcing people to juggle rankings and star ratings from four different sites in their heads).

Aggregating across the sites is not easy, partly because of data availability and especially because of the different methods used by different sites. There are countless ways to do this, with most requiring some kind of data imputation. Since no data imputation strategy would be liked by all, I’m proposing a different method that requires no imputation. Let’s call it the Veto-Based Aggregate Recruiting (V-BAR?) Rankings. (Crappy name & acronym? Check.)

The basic idea is that we restrict the rankings to players who appear in every site’s top X list (i.e. no one was unimpressed with the recruit) and then order them based on their average rankings across the sites. It’s “veto-based” because any site can prevent a player from appearing on the aggregated list.

I see two primary objections to this:
(1) It eliminates highly regarded prospects when only one outlier site is unsold on them.
(2) It gives excessive veto power to ESPN (and eliminates a lot of players) just because the ESPN 150 only ranks 150 prospects while the other services rank 247-300.

First, for (1). This is just the design of this ranking. Basically, to get on this list, there is consensus that you’re outstanding, and the average rankings tease apart just how highly you’re regarded. Interestingly, for each recruiting service, one guy stands out, rankings-wise, as a glaring omission. For Rivals, it’s Sheldon Day (#65 to Scout, #80 to 247, #144 to ESPN). For Scout, it’s Amos Leggett (#104 to Rivals, #75 to 247, #95 to ESPN). For 247, it’s Avery Young (#38 to Rivals, #13 to Scout, #119 to ESPN). For ESPN, it’s Zeke Pike (#72 to Rivals, #33 to Scout, #18 to 247). In general, though, there aren't too many really serious outliers.

Now for (2). Giving ESPN excessive veto power seems problematic, especially since ESPN’s rankings are often questioned for their quality and objectivity. Therefore, in addition to using the ESPN 150, I grabbed the next 150 players from ESPN’s recruiting rankings (link: http://espn.go.com/college-football/recruiting/prospects). So we have rankings for 300 players from ESPN.

By my count, 147 players appear in Rivals’ top 250, Scout’s top 300, 247’s top 247, and ESPN’s top 300. Here they are in order of average ranking across these four sites: